Draft to drop harsh
words on JewsDurban, September 4
Intense negotiations were on today to salvage the first-ever UN Conference against Racism after the US and Israeli pullout with delegates struggling to draft a new text of the declaration that may delete the harsh words against the Jewish state.

Demonstrators protest against the US decision to withdraw from the UN conference in Durban on Monday.
— AP photo

Chaudhry’s
FLP wins 10 seats; counting to end todaySuva, September 4
Deposed Prime Minister Mahendra Chaudhry’s Fiji Labour Party is doing well in the general election and has already won 10 seats from its strongholds.
It has secured eight of the 19 Indian (reserved) seats and two open seats in rural western Fiji, where its power base lies.

A scared child is aided by a parent and RUC police in riot gear as they make their way up the Ardoyne Road to Holy Cross Primary School in North Belfast,
on Tuesday. Scores of Roman Catholic schoolgirls protected by a thick cordon of
the police entered school in Belfast on Tuesday past irate Protestants hurling stones and obscenities on
the second day of sectarian intimidation.
— Reuters

Jerusalem, September 4
A Palestinian suicide bomber blew himself up in Jerusalem early today as children were going to a nearby school, injuring 13 persons in an attack which Israel called a consequence of the “hatred” stirred against the Jewish state at the ongoing UN racism conference.

An Israeli policeman searches the scene where a suicide bomber blew himself up in the centre of Jerusalem on Tuesday.
— Reuters photo

Pakistani Foreign Minister Abdul Sattar addresses journalists in Karachi,
on Tuesday. Pakistan said the US decision to slap sanctions on Chinese and Pakistani firms on charges of transferring missile technology was based on a narrow
US approach in the region.
— Reuters photo

Lawmakers
urge Bush to lift sanctions on PakWashington, September 4
A bi-partisan group of 24 US lawmakers has urged President George W.
Bush to lift sanctions imposed on Pakistan after the nuclear tests of
May, 1998, and called for a fair approach towards Islamabad and New
Delhi.

Shakespeare’s hidden lesbiansLondon
For 400 years, lesbians have been thought to be invisible in the works of William Shakespeare. But now a distinguished American academic has identified a bevy of Sapphic heroines in his plays.

Egyptian desert to be
used for Mars testsCairo, September 4
Cairo has given the go-ahead for French-based scientists to use the Egyptian desert to test sophisticated water-seeking probes before blasting them into space in the race to find water on the Mars.

Foreign aid workers
put on trialKabul, September 4Four weeks after they were arrested on charges of preaching Christianity, eight foreign aid workers, including two Americans, went on trial today, officials said.

A man walks towards the Supreme Court building in the Afghan capital of Kabul on
Tuesday. The Supreme Court on Tuesday began trial proceedings for eight foreign aid workers who have been jailed by the Taliban since last month on charges of preaching Christianity among local Muslims.
— Reuters photo

Fighting
erupts north of KabulIslamabad, September 4
Fighting involving tanks and heavy weapons erupted today north of the Afghan capital near the Opposition stronghold of the Panjshir valley, a report said.

Durban, September 4
Intense negotiations were on today to salvage the first-ever UN Conference against Racism after the US and Israeli pullout with delegates struggling to draft a new text of the declaration that may delete the harsh words against the Jewish state.

The 15-member European Union, which has decided not to follow the US and Israeli action, is engaged in drafting the new text at the request of the host, South Africa.

An informal group, chaired by South African Foreign Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, comprising the EU and other countries, including African and Arab nations, has been set up to draft the new text “acceptable to all delegations.”

Belgian Foreign Minister Louis Michel, who is also the president of the 15-member European Union Council, said that the EU has mandated him to accept the proposal made by Mr Dlamini-Zuma “which consists in drafting a completely new text.

The US decision to pull out of the talks has come in for sharp criticism from various countries with UN Secretary General Kofi Annan saying that Washington should have focused more on the conference’s main goals.

“I consider it regrettable. The questions of racism, xenophobia and intolerance is something that all societies live in and should fight against,” he said.

Mr Annan said: “I would have preferred that the USA was there to fight with others for the right solution, the right results and the right language.”

Mr Dlamini-Zuma, who went on to open the daily plenary session, said to applause: “I think it is unfortunate that the two countries (USA and Israel) left, and I think in the long run they will be the losers.”

Another issue that has created a great deal of debate is India’s caste system. More than 300 NGO activists from India have been campaigning for the past 10 days to get it included in the WCAR declaration.

The NGO conference, which ended on Saturday, has already declared caste as a gross violation of human rights and demanded that strong affirmative action measures must be taken to overcome the caste system.

But India’s minister of State for External Affairs Omar Abdullah has rejected any suggestions that caste be included in the agenda of the conference.

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Mary Robinson said that “crucial negotiations and the West Asia conflict is continuing at the highest level and some progress has already been made.
PTI

Suva, September 4
Deposed Prime Minister Mahendra Chaudhry’s Fiji Labour Party is doing well in the general election and has already won 10 seats from its strongholds.

It has secured eight of the 19 Indian (reserved) seats and two open seats in rural western Fiji, where its power base lies.

Commentators are already predicting a repeat of the Labour’s 1999 election performance, at least in areas with a large Indo-Fijian population, where it had scored a clean sweep over arch-rival National Federation Party (NFP).

In spite of threats by ultra-nationalist indigenous Fijians groups of bloodshed if Chaudhry, ousted last year in a coup, is returned to power, there has been an even bigger swing towards Labour so far.

All its candidates have won in the first count and led by 60-70 per cent margins under the alternate voting system.

The party had won 37 seats in the 71-member House in 1999 and a repeat performance does not look inconceivable at this stage.

The first to be counted was Lautoka city Indian (reserved) seat, won by Ganesh Chand, former Urban Affairs and Housing Minister in the Chaudhry Government. He garnered 72.52 per cent of the votes.

But of his three opponents, NFP’s Faiaaz Ali was bitter. He said: “Indians have not learnt from the lessons of 1999.”

Votes were still being counted for Chaudhry’s Ba Indian seat on Tuesday afternoon, but a landslide win is expected for the former Premier.

Interim Prime Minister Laisenia Qarase’s Soqosoqo Duavata ni Lewenivanua (SDL) party is doing well in Fijian seats. It has won two of 23 seats at stake.

In the interior and northern parts of Fiji, the ultra-nationalist indigenous Fijian party, Conservative Alliance (CA) is expected to do well. The party proposes to pardon coup leader George Speight and his associates if it comes to power.

The voting pattern so far shows trends that are worrying some analysts. The two major ethnic groups, indigenous Fijian and ethnic Indian, are supporting extremely opposed parties, rather than the so-called moderate NFP, Fijian Association party and New Unity Labour Party.

Whether this will be the trend in the open seats in urban-based areas will soon be known. In all, 46 are seats and 25 open ones, in which the one votes for candidates from any ethnic community.

Counting is expected to be completed on Wednesday, after which the President is required to name a Prime Minister, choosing a candidate he feels enjoys the support and confidence of the majority of the House.

An anti-Chaudhry alliance of ethnic Fijian political parties has already submitted a petition to the President saying Chaudhry should not be the next premier as he does not represent the indigenous population. They have warned of another revolt similar to the 1987 and 1999 coups by ethnic Fijians.

Fijians comprise 54 per cent and Indo-Fijians 44 per cent of Fiji’s 800,000 population. But Chaudhry seems set to become Prime Minister, giving rise to concerns of more instability.

“Get ready for another coup,” said an Indian student as results began trickling in and leaned in favour of Labour.

Fiji’s leading newspaper, Fiji Times, has urged voters and political leaders Tuesday to be rational and accept the election outcome. “By the time the week is out, there will be more than a few unhappy people,” it said in an editorial.

“Instead of slinking away into the shadows to plot what they imagine to be revenge, these people should stand up in the full glare of the media and insist that they and by extension their supporters will accept the legally-elected government. The will of the people must be respected.”

Jerusalem, September 4
A Palestinian suicide bomber blew himself up in Jerusalem early today as children were going to a nearby school, injuring 13 persons in an attack which Israel called a consequence of the “hatred” stirred against the Jewish state at the ongoing UN racism conference.

The bomber’s head landed in the yard of the French school close to the scene of the blast in Ha Nevehim Street, or the Street of the Prophets, in west Jerusalem, a father who had just arrived with his little girl, said.

European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana was booed by dozens of Israelis shouting “death to Arabs” as he visited the scene of the blast, which dealt a new blow to efforts to prepare a meeting between Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.

The police said the man, disguised as a religious Jew,
triggered off a bomb he was carrying in a rucksack on his back, apparently when he was approached by border guards alerted by suspicious passers-by.

A border guard was one of those hurt in the blast.

Israel blamed the attack on the Palestinian leadership and the push for resolutions against Israel to be included in the final declaration of the UN conference on racism in Durban, South Africa.

The attack is “a direct result of the flow of hatred the Palestinian Authority has poured onto its people and the international community,” Avi Pazner, a spokesman for Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, said.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Emmanuel Nachshon said Mr Yasser Arafat and the Arab league “are inciting the most extreme hatred and violence against Israel. They did it in Durban and they are doing it within the Palestinian Authority.”

Washington, September 4
A bi-partisan group of 24 US lawmakers has urged President George W. Bush to lift sanctions imposed on Pakistan after the nuclear tests of May, 1998, and called for a fair approach towards Islamabad and New Delhi.

In two separate but largely identical letters sent to Mr Bush, Senators and Congressmen from both the Republican and the Democratic parties have applauded the Bush administration’s review of unilateral sanctions against India and Pakistan and stressed the importance of treating both countries equally and fairly.

“We applaud your administration’s review of the US policy towards Pakistan and India, and especially the attention being given to the removal of unilateral economic sanctions that were imposed on both nations following their respective nuclear tests in 1998.”

Making their plea for equal treatment of India and Pakistan more explicit, the Congressional leaders said, “It is vitally important that both nuclear powers in South Asia be treated equally and fairly in order to further our country’s non-proliferation objectives.”

The co-signers of the two letters, mostly members of the Pakistan Caucus in the Congress or its supporters, stressed the “crucial importance” of Pakistan in the US policy perspectives.

Despite Islamabad’s explicit support to the Taliban movement and its cross-border terrorism against India, they argued that “Pakistan remains a critically important, moderate friend of the USA in the Islamic world and South Asia.”

On the Senate side, the signatories include Democratic Senators Tim Johnson of South Dakota, Robert Torricelli, Tom Harkin, Harry Reid and Republican Senators John Warner and Gordon Smith.
PTI

London
For 400 years, lesbians have been thought to be invisible in the works of William Shakespeare. But now a distinguished American academic has identified a bevy of Sapphic heroines in his plays.

Hermione, Portia and Beatrice were apparently gay. And Cleopatra’s household was a hotbed of same-sex affection. Not only the Egyptian Queen but the queen of the fairies, Titania, had lesbian tendencies too, according to the remarkable new insights of Dr Theodora Jankowski, a former Professor of English literature at University of Washington.

In “The Winter’s Tale”, Hermione disappears for 16 years having been accused by her husband of having an affair. Jankowski has raised the possibility that, cared for in secret, her courtier Paulina attended to “all of Hermione’s needs”. The “removed house” in which it is hinted that Hermione was hidden, “represented a secure, private place where a woman could engage in erotic interludes with another woman without arousing suspicion”.

Portia in “The Merchant of Venice” marries Bassanio, Jankowski explains, “with little evidence of real love” on either side. “There are few Shakespearean couples who marry with less of a history of love or serious courtship.” Portia is far more likely to be in love with Nerissa, her serving woman, we should have realised.”

Beatrice in “Much Ado about Nothing,” played by Emma Thompson in a 1993 film, may have been the lover of Hero, with whom she shared a bed for a year. The female coupling has gone unremarked until now, but Jankowski says: “If Hero could have been unchaste with a strange man the night before her wedding, then it’s entirely possible she may have been unchaste with her cousin.”

Lindsay Posner, a director with the Royal Shakespeare Company, said: “All of Shakespeare is so rich with ambiguity that you can really turn any of his plays in your own culture’s image. That’s why he has lasted so long. There’s always something in them with resonance that can be interpreted and re-interpreted as history changes.”
The Observer, London

Kabul, September 4
Four weeks after they were arrested on charges of preaching Christianity, eight foreign aid workers, including two Americans, went on trial today, officials said.

The trial, which Chief Justice Noor Mohamed Saqib said would be closed despite earlier promises that it would be open to journalists and relatives of the accused, was expected to last several days at least.

Saqib and 14 Islamic clerics met for nearly four hours today at the start of the trial, which will eventually allow the eight foreign aid workers to speak in their own defence.

Saqib would not say when they would be called to the court. He said they would also be provided with a lawyer if they requested one.

The eight foreign aid workers, who also include four Germans and two Australians, were arrested, along with 16 Afghan staff members. The foreign aid workers were to be tried separately.

Under Taliban law, the penalty for a foreigner who is caught proselytizing is jail and expulsion. For an Afghan, the penalty is death.

For the parents of the two jailed Americans, Dayna Curry, 29, and Heather Mercer, 24, the wait has been fraught with uncertainty.
AP

Cairo, September 4
Cairo has given the go-ahead for French-based scientists to use the Egyptian desert to test sophisticated water-seeking probes before blasting them into space in the race to find water on the Mars.

“After laboratory work, we now want to study the performance of our prototypes on a terrain which matches the surface of the Mars as closely as possible,” said Egyptian astronomer Essam Heggy, involved in the project.

The Netlander system, composed of four land-penetrating radars, will be put to the test in the Western Desert near Siwa in February 2002, ahead of plans to send it to the Mars in 2007 on board an Ariane-5 rocket, Heggy told AFP.

Each of the four Netlander probes will be dropped off on a different part of the Red Planet to look for traces of water beneath the surface to a depth of up to 2 km, Heggy said.

In June, 2000, the US space agency, NASA, announced that pictures from the orbiting Mars Global Surveyor pointed to the recent presence of liquid water, one of the fundamental factors required to create and sustain life.
AFP

Islamabad, September 4
Fighting involving tanks and heavy weapons erupted today north of the Afghan capital near the Opposition stronghold of the Panjshir valley, a report said.

The Taliban militia captured the Khanqah and Sang-e-Borda areas in the south-west of Mahmud-i-Raqi, capital of Kapisa province, around 70 km north of Kabul, the Afghan Islamic Press reported.

Taliban forces have also tried to enter the valley from the northern end in recent months, but have failed to break opposition defences in Takhar province.
AFP

WORLD BRIEFS

NICOLE KIDMAN MAY RETURN TO STAGE
LONDON: Film star Nicole Kidman in considering a return to the British stage in another collaboration with Oscar-winning director Sam Mendes. Speaking to reporters on Monday night at the European premiere of her film “Moulin Rouge’’, Kidman said the play would probably be staged in the same Covent Garden Theatre, the Donmar Warehouse, where she made a sizzling London debut in “The Blue Room’’ three years ago. British director Sam Mendes won an Oscar for “American Beauty’’.
Reuters

TEN KILLED IN COAL MINE BLAST
BEIJING: Emergency workers have recovered the bodies of the 10 miners killed in a weekend blast at a coal mine in China’s western region of Xinjiang, the official Xinhua news agency has said. An accumulation of gas was blamed for triggering the blast on Saturday in Uighur region.
Reuters

"ASOKA" PREMIERE AT VENICE FILM
FESTIVAL
LONDON: Actor-cum-co-producer Shah Rukh Khan’s epic ‘Asoka’ will be premiered at the Venice Film Festival this week, marking Bollywood’s further expansion into mainstream cinema in the west.
PTI

MAN GETS $ 1 M

WITH BURGER
WASHINGTON: A former homeless day labourer was handed $ 1 million with his breakfast burger by McDonald’s managers eager to beef up consumer confidence following news that previous sweepstakes were rigged by the promotion company that ran them. On Saturday, Patrick Collier, 35, and his fiancee were handed one of the grand prizes as they were having breakfast at a McDonald’s outlet near Daytona Beach, Florida.
DPA

MAN KILLED, WIFE HURT IN SHARK ATTACK
WASHINGTON: A man and wife wading through the surf of a North Carolina Beach were attacked by a shark on Monday, killing the man and leaving his wife critically injured. The second deadly shark attack in the USA this year came just a day after a 10-year-old boy died from wounds he sustained when he was attacked by a shark late on Saturday.
DPA

GUATEMALA DECLARES EMERGENCY
GUATEMALA CITY: Guatemala has declared a 30-day national state of emergency to help it deal with the devastating drought that has caused the starvation deaths of at least 41 persons. Jorge Perez, spokesman for the Guatemalan presidential office, said the government would coordinate its efforts to help the eastern part of the country which has been hit hard by months of drought.
DPA

ACTRESS HECHE

MARRIES CAMERAMAN
LOS ANGELES: Actress Anne Heche, once part of America’s most prominent lesbian couple with Ellen DeGeneres, has married a cameraman she reportedly met while making a documentary about DeGeneres, her publicist said.
Reuters